From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Apr 6 07:14:53 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8266 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!news.sprintlink.net!psgrain!news.teleport.com!news.teleport.com!not-for-mail From: stiltman@teleport.com (Stilt Man) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Tor][AD] Demonstrations (parte the second) Date: 6 Apr 1995 01:23:27 -0700 Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 Lines: 389 Message-ID: <3m08dv$236@linda.teleport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: linda.teleport.com [ADMIN: Okay, I need to give some folks some serious credit for slapping some sense into me here, as I seem to be having a relapse of the uncooperative syndrome that creeps its way into my psyche when I'm feeling stressed at a given time. Looks like it's time to start taking my medication again . . . :) At any rate (tm), Corey and Alex put a fair amount of input into this, and I'm basically inputting nice arguments about useless subjects that indicate rather loudly to me that I'm up way past my bedtime again . . . Sigh. Now all I need is a notification that I posted this to the wrong newsgroup, and I can make this a perfect night for general-purpose screwups on my part.] [ADMIN2: If anyone wants to give feedback on what they think of this story, what parts they liked, didn't like, etc., I would find it most helpful. I haven't heard from the readership over email for quite some time now, and a little indication that this is going somewhere besides the bit bucket wouldn't hurt right about now. Maybe even some encouragement if you find it worthy of such, or a suggestion for a mercy killing if you don't. Simple feedback will suffice. Try to have a better day than I'm having. It'll be a lot harder than trying to fail to have a better day. Sigh. Bedtime for bonzo . . .] Just inside the area enclosed by the shattered walls of the keep of Duke Emrikol, the ruins of the gatehouse lying torn asunder behind her, stood the tall form of Arcania Dorval. She stood alone, confident and terrible in her power. Such was the might that could be sensed that it seemed that no living man within that tower without great strength of will or lack of regard for his own life dared to approach her and interfere in what she did. Yet she was not unopposed in her defiance of the defences here of this keep. Whilst her minions with unending brutality rent and tore the bodies of the sentinels of that fortress, two stood against her. One was the ruler of that keep, Emrikol himself, his dark hair flowing wildly behind him, stained with blood both his own and of his people, and soiled with the dust of war. The other was an amorphous creature that was known to those aware of its existence only as Shifter, for a lack of any other remembered identity. Emrikol stood against her in instinct, defending what was his against she who threatened it. Shifter stood against her also in instinct, though a more personal one; he defended only himself. Somewhere in the back of both their minds, they wondered what had become of the third entity of power that had dwelled here of late, the Shrouded One, Kryalla Simuel. For a time her power had been felt from whatever invisible perch she had attained, aiding the others in defence from the mystic attacks on the mind that Arcania had attempted, but now the senses, the gut feelings of Emrikol, seemed to miss her presence, as though she had absconded in the midst of the fray. Or perhaps, he thought grimly, she had removed herself so as not to miss the opportunity to observe what Shifter and himself could do with their powers thus far unknown to her. Whatever the reason, the Dark One cared little. She stood awaiting the first strike from either of them, not committing herself to any action lest the other waylay her while she was so occupied. She was not disappointed, as Shifter coiled his legs and leapt towards her, his inhuman strength trying to bear her to the dirt and leave her open to a lethal stroke with his claws. But Arcania stood fast against the strike, setting one foot behind her to plant her claim to the spot where she stood, and blocked the pounce with an upraised forearm, glowing with her magic. Shifter was stopped, his dampening field preventing her defences from harming him but not enabling him to proceed, and he was left leaning upon her, aware in the back of his mind that her strength was far more than even her muscular form revealed to the eye. Then her left hand, knotted into a fist surrounded by a pink globe of force lending its force to her blow, pounded into his body, knocking him loose from her and back to all fours on the ground. Emrikol chose his opportunity, and his stroke of force impacted the moment Shifter was clear. Arcania staggered, but as before she remained standing. Emrikol shifted the focus of his strike, and the energy of the power font that had struck her, before it had even been dissipated in the expenditure of the blow it formed, shaped into a solid object, a hammer. The hammer thus created hurtled into her body, impacting just beneath the ribs, seeking to steal the breath from her. The defensive spells protecting her seized hold of the construct, turning its mystical forces upon itself, and the weapon was turned to impotent dust scattering in the wind. Shifter took his turn, allowing her no time to regain her thoughts against the twofold strikes. This time he sought not to overbear her, but to use his claws directly upon her flesh. The claws sunk deep beneath her skin, but when they had passed through there was no mark left on her. Arcania gripped him by the thick wrists leading to his forepaws, staring into the beady eyes in the sleek head of the creature. She held him there for a short time, betwixt herself and Emrikol, leaving the other with no opening to strike once more. She risked a glance about, seeing the reactions to this thing in the eyes of the other defenders. They were as unknowing as to the nature of this thing as she, as surprised by its appearance as she. Arcania hurled Shifter back to the ground, satisfied that he represented the secret that had been withheld from K'al's spy before. The energy that emanated from him even now was so markedly similar to those of the Vortex that it was ridiculously obvious that he had come from there at some time in the recent past. Emrikol formed a new reality just then, awakening her to the situation once more. The rock of the earth reached up to grip her by the ankles, leaving her stuck there whilst Shifter sprang again. This time, with no way to move her feet to stand against the attack, she was thrown from a vertical base and onto her back. Such was the force of Shifter that the feet of Arcania were torn from their rocky shackles, shattering the stone that had held her. Shifter tried to tear her throat out, claw her eyes from their sockets, anything that might prevent her from fighting on, disable her, kill this being that threatened him and those who had aided him. He found himself being frustrated by her defensive spells even as she was by the dampening force that he seemed to possess himself. His claws passed through her flesh as though through empty air, making no mark. His teeth could not get a grip upon her for some reason. Abruptly, he became aware that she was no longer beneath him, but was on his back pulling upward as his neck. Shifter rolled over, hurling her beneath him again, settling his form over her. Pinning her with his arms, part of his upper body lost shape to cover her face, hoping to smother her. Closing his eyes, he exerted his strength to its utmost to hold her where she lay. Soon the struggles ceased, and he opened an eye beneath him to see her again. He found himself looking at the rocky ground of the keep once more. Angrily, he formed himself back into beast shape, looking about for her, looking for Emrikol to see if he had found her. Indeed, Emrikol also seemed to have lost sight of her. His runes glowed furiously, seeking to undo whatever spell had hidden her, but the expression on his face indicated that he was having ill luck with such. Their hands seemed to clutch at their heads as one. Emrikol felt the claws tearing within his mind as before, Shifter less so. The beastly shape still had his natural powers of dampening magic, his resistance, but the magic of Arcania Dorval was powerful, well-honed, and well-used to overcoming creatures normally resistant to its influence. Moreover, the mind beneath the skin had been broken by its recent ordeals, leaving the will at its core soft against her strike. Then, as suddenly as the stroke had begun, the claws seemed to withdraw once more. Arcania reappeared, both hands glowing with raw power. Twin blows of white energy lanced the two of them, knocking both from their feet in their weakened state. Emrikol stood the more quickly, though Shifter was swiftly behind him with a quick reshifting of his legs beneath him. The claws tore at their minds once more, though this time they seemed to be more used to it. Emrikol stoically ignored it, whilst Shifter seemed to grow only more angry. Emrikol, through the haze within his brain, looked over at the beastly shape, and suddenly concern broke over his features. The expression on the shapeshifter's face was feral, unthinking, returned to the savagery which they had first encountered. Forgetting that such tactics had ill served it before, the beast leapt at Arcania anew. She turned her shoulder against his leap, holding him at bay with one outstretched hand. Emrikol saw the white glow in that hand ere Shifter did. He recognised it, prepared the runes to invoke a possibility if it meant what he thought it did. He had seen it before in the Tower of Obsidian owned by the late Velric, and did not remember it fondly at all. The dimension which was filled with acid, that devoured nearly instantly all matter physical or metaphysical that came in contact with it, was vented for a time. This time Arcania chose only a small vent, and it was placed close beneath the belly of Shifter. The small spout resulted, the coruscating liquid emptying onto the gut of the beastly form before her, Arcania herself teleporting away instantly lest any of it fall upon her. The inhuman shriek that resulted as Shifter felt his stomach disintegrate at the touch of that all-devouring juice set the ears of all within the keep to ringing. Arcania had struck him only briefly, as though she were being careful not to destroy him with the larger form of the Geyser of Death, as though she were testing his resilience against it. Shifter squinted in agony, smoke rising from his undersides where he had come in contact with the evil fluid. Blackness seemed to creep in upon his inhuman vision, and he momentarily lost awareness as his body shifted form to deal with this new arcane threat. Part of his substance momentarily changed to something that was not quite matter, preventing further damage from the acid on the physical plane. The pain seemed to linger from before, then subsided as the venom dropped through his substance and hissed on the ground beneath him. The danger having been dealt with, his body returned to tangible form. His mind was not so fortunate, and feral instinct took command at once. Emrikol saw a starkly defined shadow of himself before, and felt rather than saw the runes invoking the possibility he had prepared before. From upon the shattered parapets he saw the greater Geyser of Death tearing into the rock where he had stood only an instant earlier, halted immediately as Arcania realized that it was wasted. She turned and found him where he stood instantly, and turned the portal towards him. This time he had no such possibility prepared, and his jaw dropped in horror as he saw the glittering liquid rising up to engulf him and the battlements he stood upon. The shield the power font erected about himself held a brief moment, then fell. The runes instinctively leapt to his defence, invoked the possibility that it was simple water that struck him rather than his demise splashing over him. But they could only do so much against the stuff, which seemed to squash magic in a manner similar to Shifter's substance. He felt the first agony of its touch, was mercifully robbed of his senses swiftly. He fell to the parapets quite unconscious and bleeding, large parts of his skin missing. Shifter saw the brief burst of acid that felled the sorcerer that had rescued him from imbecility, not comprehending a great deal other than an instinctive need to kill this being before him. His reason was gone, his movements were slow, his pounce slower. Arcania seized him by his forewrists once again, her eyes gazing deeply into his. It seemed that a green glint lighted in the pupils for a moment, and then he felt his mass disintegrating once more. The pain was excruciating, and he uttered a sound of pain, this time a low groan as he faded away from existence. Arcania took stock of the rest of the battle. The defenders had been subdued mostly, the Balroqs taking to breaking the inner towers and playing football with the heads of those within. Still, only a few heads were rolling betwixt the feet of her minions, which meant that they had the sense to leave some of them alive. She found her two purple lieutenants taking the report of one of the few black-carapaced Thurlans that had accompanied the foray. She strode over to receive their report in turn. "The keep is secured, more or less," assured one of the deep purple daemon lords. "Some of them are dead, but enough of them are left alive that they'll be able to go on living as they did before . . . more or less." The huge, stocky creature indicated the woman that dangled limply by her wrist, held in the claws of the Thurlan. "This was the only one who gave the signs of espionage you described to us." Arcania regarded the boneless form, stretched out a finger and turned up the chin of the woman. It was indeed the face of the woman the Dark One had seen speaking to K'al when she had been at his fortress. She turned back to the daemon lord. "Someone else ruled this keep, controlled the power font in the absence of our dear Duke," she regarded the man even now enjoying the attentions of the Balroqs on the half-melted battlements where he had fallen. They were not abusing him, merely shackling him in adamant, scribed with runes that would render all possibilities other than his continued imprisonment beyond his reach. As she watched, they took wing and began to haul him over towards her. "What of them?" she continued. "The household is apparently run by the Duke's dam," said the daemon. "She has secreted herself behind a metallic door in the throne room, with a large portion of the staff. We attempted to open it, but the door dampens our magic. Most of the guards were taken alive. However, those the Thurlans have interrogated know nothing of that . . . thing that bound out." Arcania nodded. "I will examine this creature when I have time. We will need to transport both prisoners back to Thyaris for the time being whilst I consider all matters currently before me," she said. "I have little enough time left here and I have used enough of it. Emrikol's dam is unimportant, we have the ones we want," she indicated Emrikol, now being healed enough for moving by the other daemon lord. They used a rather different form of healing than most, namely by imparting the soul energies they have sucked from others into the subject. The end result was the same, however: the reddened patches where Emrikol's flesh had been eaten from his bones closed, though the blood that stained his hide was still present. The runes that had been drawn on the patches in question were broken, not replaced. Suddenly something seemed to occur to Arcania that had not since very early in the fighting. "What has become of the Shrouded One? She is not among any of the bodies or prisoners that I see before me," demanded Arcania. The daemon lord shrugged. "I know not. There has been no sign of her since early in the battle." The sapphire eyes of Arcania narrowed in suspicion. "I like it not. You," she addressed the Thurlan with Brianna. "Appropriate this baggage to your use and remain here to report to both K'al and myself. Any knowledge she may carry of the use of magic on this world is to be included in your first report. Make no mention to K'al of any knowledge you may have of either where I came from, what I brought with me, or what I removed from here. Let him believe that Emrikol and his love," she said the word with amusement, "both remain here." She gazed about, raking the area with her most powerful truesight. Nothing. No trace of the Shrouded One or any of her spells. Not even an animal, a bird or rat, braved the open that was not what it appeared to be. "Methinks we should be quits of this place ere the Shrouded One reveals whatever gambit she plays." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Syandria glared as she watched the scene in the throne room through the crystal sphere floating before her. She watched as the hulking crimson creatures finally bowed in mock courtesy and backed from the throne room. She was tempted to strike with her meager knowledge of the font, but she withheld her anger, knowing it would do little good and likely mean far more deaths than had already been suffered. Besides, it was only her meager control of the font that had kept the metallic door sealed throughout the daemonic assault on it. She refocused the scrying crystal to outside the keep's walls, and saw the horrid creatures take wing and leave the keep, one of them holding a limp male form under its huge, muscular arm. She focused the crystal, and could make out the faint glow of those strange markings Emrikol had returned with all over his skin. She kept the crystal focused on the retreating form of her son, until the flying demon passed out of range. She scryed the courtyard, and the sight nearly took her breath away. She focused on several of the bodies, but could see no sign of Kryalla Simuel amongst all the wreckage, the last remnants of human life that remained here. The front wall, never having been in particularly good shape since the war with K'al, was now reduced to rubble. Only in four or five places did so much as two stones stand one atop the other. The other walls had escaped most of the damage, though holes had been torn in some of them. In one place, a discolorment of some greenish liquid lay, a large conic hole in the rock in another. The hole had a melted look, as did a section of one of the walls that still stood. Most of the rest of the devastation was not so graceful, bearing the look of a pottery gallery that had been run through by a group of unruly children bearing bludgeons. Some of the guards were moving, though all had been grievously injured by the invaders. She inured herself to the sight of the heads that had been kicked around the grounds for sport, the blood spattered about by it, and prepared to unseal the door. She focused her mind, and called on the font to release the seal on the door. A faint release of air could be heard, but little else. The door remained closed. She motioned to two of the guards to try and open the door through main force. The two braced themselves against the door and pushed. The door failed to move even an inch. The pair tried shoving the door, prying the edges with swords, and even ramming it with their shoulders. The door stood impassively through all of their attempts. "Move back from the door Syandria and I will remove my spell," a familiar, soft silken voice spoke behind her. Syandria whirled, grief for her possibly-dead son and all the slain overcoming her for a moment as she saw the ebon form of Kryalla Simuel standing there, seemingly unharmed. "You! You stood by, craven harlot, while my son and his people were butchered! By enemies who came here seeking *your* head!" She advanced on the dark figure, her fists pounding ineffectually on the fabric of the Shroud that covered the other. "People who would still be alive if you had not come here!" "Your son spent two years languishing in the dungeons of the Dark One, banished her to the-gods-only-know-where for months, and then returned here with the likelihood that he might well learn to control something like that," she gestured at the crystal sphere, which was focused on the blue gash of the Vortex in the sky, "should he choose to continue to stand against her, thus posing one of the greatest potential threats to her entire existence, and you think I am somehow responsible for her coming?" Syandria blinked up at the taller woman, the voice somehow having some persuasiveness to it that opened her eyes. "Such evil ones are careless about choosing their victims. I have lost ones I loved also," she continued sadly, moving through the throne room and out into the courtyard. "Then why didn't you at least stand with us until the end?" asked Syandria, much calmer but still somewhat grief-stricken. Kryalla would have smiled would it not have likely enraged the woman anew. "I did," she said. "This battle was decided with the movement of the Dark One to stretch her fingers here." She looked up at the fading specks in the sky. "She has not brought such numbers of her minions to bear for quite some time. My standing against it would only have resulted in my own head rolling beside those of your people." She gazed into Syandria's eyes deeply. "Too, if I had not lent aid, the door would not have survived its ordeal." Kryalla gazed at the death and destruction that used to be the keep's courtyard. "Now I am free and able to work by stealth what force could never attain. Had I fought, I would have fallen here with the rest, and your cause would be truly lost." "You will somehow free my son of this evil?" "That and more," Kryalla promised. Syandria began to wish her well, but found that the other woman had already vanished. She looked up in the sky, and saw a bird of ebon flying away, following the way the invaders had gone. Syandria smiled despite herself. "Doesn't waste time, does she?" she shook her head. She turned back to the carnage around her, in realization of what it would take to rebuild here, and the smile melted from her visage in an instant. +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ + Kryalla Simuel the Shrouded One + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ + . . . scribed by the Stilt Man, + + stiltman@teleport.com + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ __________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ | | | Shifter ... An invention of Alex Young | | ayoung@cit.gu.edu.au | |____________________________________________________| __________________________________________________ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-= Corey Venour -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- cvenour@cit.gu.edu.au -=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~cvenour/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-